On the day Albert Pujols left the St. Louis Cardinals in December 2011, their general manager, John Mozeliak, slipped out of the winter meetings unnoticed and bolted for the airport. There were four hours before his flight was due to leave Dallas, but Mozeliak needed to go somewhere to compose himself. He found solace in an American Airlines lounge. "I was down, depressed, disheartened," he said.

Eighteen months later, Mozeliak and the Cardinals are hardly ruing the day Pujols, the iconic slugger, signed a 10-year, $240 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels. To the contrary, his decision is looking like a godsend for St. Louis.

After winning the World Series with Pujols in 2011, the Cardinals scored more and allowed fewer runs in 2012, despite falling one win short of another National League pennant. And they are off to the best start in the majors this year, at 21-12.

The production the Angels have gotten from first base, Pujols's primary position, is virtually identical to that of Cardinals first basemen since the start of 2012. The weighted on-base average, a sabermetric measure of offensive performance, of each team's first basemen over that span is .356.

The difference: St. Louis isn't paying such an enormous price. And St. Louis is actually winning. After missing the playoffs last year, the Angels entered Thursday with an 11-22 record, which tied their worst start in franchise history. Pujols, 33, who has been slowed by a foot injury, was batting just .240. Last season was his career-worst by most statistical measures.

"When teams are making those kinds of long-term commitments, they're assuming a high level of risk," Mozeliak said. "There is something to trying to build a core from within and not having to take that leap of faith in these long-term deals."

The Cardinals are proof of how a strong farm system can enable a team to be disciplined in free agency. Though no one player has compensated for the loss of Pujols, homegrown players like David Freese and Allen Craig have helped fill the void.

The Cardinals also used the money that would have gone to Pujols for other needs, most notably signing outfielder Carlos Beltran to a two-year deal and star catcher Yadier Molina to a five-year, $75 million extension.

Last winter, St. Louis allowed its best starting pitcher in 2012, Kyle Lohse, to leave as a free agent. Yet the Cardinals have the lowest earned-run average in the majors this year (3.07), in part because of the emergence of top prospect Shelby Miller.

"I think we're going to begin to redefine the winners and losers in the off-season," said Vince Gennaro, author of "Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball," and a consultant to MLB teams. "And the winners aren't necessarily going to be who gets the free agent. It's things that aren't as apparent in the off-season, which is: Who has the talent pipeline to backfill the free agent?"

To be sure, the Cardinals wanted badly to re-sign Pujols, a perennial All-Star and the face of the franchise. They began discussing a contract extension with him as far back as the winter of 2009-10. And they offered him a nine-year, $198 million extension in spring training 2011, which he rejected.

Mozeliak said several different contract structures were discussed in the final days of Pujols's free agency, but those proposals were never substantially better than that spring-training offer.

Two days before Pujols agreed to terms with the Angels, Mozeliak sent an email to Cardinals owner Bill Dewitt Jr. asking, in essence: Is it time to forget discipline and bid whatever it takes, given Pujols's importance to the franchise? But both men remained wary of committing so much to one player.

"In the end, it came down to business discipline versus emotionally driven negotiation," Mozeliak said.

For the most part, fans in St. Louis sided with the team, believing it had done all it could. Though ratings for Cardinals games on Fox Sports Midwest fell by 14% in 2012, they remained the third-highest in baseball. And attendance at Busch Stadium increased by 5%.

During the playoffs last year, Marty Prather, a Cardinals season-ticket holder since 1983, gleefully held up a sign showing Pujols watching the playoffs from his couch, popcorn in hand. But as more time has passed, Prather said some of the anger toward Pujols has dissipated.

"People were really upset with him and were defacing his jersey a year ago," he said. "But I think it has softened with the success of the Cardinals last year and Albert's production falling off. If the Angels would have come to town last year, he would have gotten some boos. Now? I think a lot more applause."

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